cwbiff - a morse code mail notifier

Current version: 0.2.0 (20071216) - Download directory - ChangeLog


cwbiff is a small Perl program (similar to the classic Unix program 'biff') which queries a mailbox and notifies the user about new incoming mail by sending the From: and Subject: lines in morse code (CW).

Before and after playing CW, an arbitrary command line action can be triggered, for example to stop and start a media player like 'xmms' if it's playing.

Supported methods/protocols

Functionality for POP3, maildir etc. can easily be implemented. Drop me a line if you're interested.

Usage Example

[fabian@host ~]$ cwbiff
cwbiff v0.2.0 starting...
Reading configuration from /home/fabian/.cwbiff
Method: imap, Server: mail.fkurz.net, Mailbox: INBOX
User: fabian, Poll: 60, SSL: yes
[21:01] Checking mail ...
mail fm Fabian Kurz : Testing cwbiff...
[21:02] Checking mail ...
[21:03] Checking mail ...
[21:04] Checking mail ...
mail fm Fabian Kurz : Another test!

It's written in Perl and invokes an external program to generate CW. One such program is morse.c, other similar programs are available, for example the "unixcw" package.

The Perl part is platform independent and should run on any OS, the morse part however is only available for Linux/Unix. If anyone knows of a Windows program capable of doing the same as morse.c etc. does (i.e. read text from STDIN and send it in CW), please let me know!


Download, License

Of course cwbiff is free software (free as in beer and free as in freedom) and published under the GPL 2.

Get the latest version from the download directory.


Author, Contact, Feedback

cwbiff was written by Fabian Kurz, DJ1YFK.

I am always interested in any kind of feedback concerning cwbiff. If you have any suggestions, questions, feature-requests etc., don't hesitate a minute and contact me via eMail, ICQ (169955833) or on the mailing list


SVN access

All projects are also available via Subversion.

For those not familiar with SVN: You can always fetch the latest version by:

svn checkout svn://dl0tud.tu-dresden.de/yfk/             # whole repository
svn checkout svn://dl0tud.tu-dresden.de/yfk/qrq/         # only qrq
svn checkout svn://dl0tud.tu-dresden.de/yfk/yfklog/      # only yfklog  etc...

But be aware that this version may not be 'stable' at all. If you don't like experiments, just continue to use the normal releases.

I'll gladly grant write access to the repository as needed, just drop me a line.


Mailing list

For user support, announcements of new releases and general discussion, a mailing list has been set up. To subscribe or browse the archives, please visit this link.



fkurz.net -> Ham Radio -> cwbiff
Last modified: Saturday, 09-Feb-2008 02:31:15 CET